Re: Converting char to varchar automatically - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Jim Nasby
Subject Re: Converting char to varchar automatically
Date
Msg-id 54348652.6090903@BlueTreble.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: Converting char to varchar automatically  (Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>)
List pgsql-general
On 10/6/14, 6:16 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
> Jim Nasby <Jim.Nasby@BlueTreble.com> writes:
>> Just a heads-up: each of those ALTER's will rewrite the table, so unless your database is tiny this will be a slow
process.There's ways to work around that, but they're significantly more complicated. 
>
> I think he's trying to get rid of all the blank-padding he's got right
> now, so table rewrites are unavoidable.

Right, but there's other ways this could be done without requiring an outage. Like creating the new column with
temporaryname, put trigger on table, etc, etc. 

Having dealt with an environment where downtime was thousands of dollars per minute I've gotten very creative at not
takingoutages. :) 
--
Jim Nasby, Data Architect, Blue Treble Consulting
Data in Trouble? Get it in Treble! http://BlueTreble.com


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